Wales Versus England, Euro 2012 Qualifier: Open Thread

I’m seriously hoping that today’s match between Wales and England (11am ET, ESPN2/ESPN3.com) will rekindle more discussion about the possible return of the British Home Championship. A big part of that will be whether Wales can show to England and the world if their national team is worthy of competing against the likes of England. If The Three Lions find Wales to be an inferior opposition today and walk all over them, it hardly gives the British Home Championship much chance of seeing a return if the level of competiveness is sub-standard.

British Home Championship aside, today’s match is a must-watch game (which is a rarity when England is involved). How many times have we seen England play a hum-drum game inside a quiet Wembley Stadium during the last few years? At least this match will have a ton of passion and atmosphere on display.

Before, during or after today’s match, post your rants, raves, observations or questions in the comments section below.

About Christopher Harris

Founder and publisher of World Soccer Talk, Christopher Harris is the managing editor of the site. He has been interviewed by The New York Times, The Guardian and several other publications. Plus he has made appearances on NPR, BBC World, CBC, BBC Five Live, talkSPORT and beIN SPORT.
Harris, who has lived in Florida since 1984, has supported Swansea City since 1979. He's also an expert on soccer in South Florida, and got engaged during half-time of a MLS game.
Harris launched EPL Talk in 2005, which was rebranded as World Soccer Talk in 2013.
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Expecting a good performance from England today. Comfortable win by a couple of goals. Bellamy and Ramsey are main threats but should think we have enough to cope. Wales losing Bale just days before game is a HUGE blow but I do wish Wales, and Gary Speed, every success for WC Qualification for Brazil 2014.

I love the idea of the British Home Championship. Problem is when do you play the games. Not to mention the clubs who already hate internationals and the injuries they bring.

I wouldn’t mind if it was a u21 or u19 competition, but I think its days as a senior team tournament are done and dusted. Money is the ruler of the game, and National Associations would rather pack in a friendly vs a name nation where they can collect a bigger gate and Tv revenue.

Would love to see Wales do one over the English but I just cannot see it happening especially with Gareth Bale out. England will win comfortably probably by 2 or 3 goals. I just hope it’s not a boring game.

There I was thinking that we were past the days when football fans underestimate the US team. Bale & Ramsey are great upcoming players but with little experience in big international games and Bellamy is a monster every coach would like to have on their team, but that does not make Wales a great team, certainly not on the level of the USA. Bale, Bellamy, Ramsey vs Dempsey, Donovan, Bradley. One group has been proving their worth internationally while the other is still learning to play together.

Ramsey just came back from a broken leg what did you expect? Him and Wilshere are going to be foundation for one of the biggest clubs in the world for the next decade while beside Tim Howard, nobody in the US side would get near the Arsenal first team.

Gaffer you need to just admit it once and for all that you don’t like Arsenal and your a closet Spurs fan.

Foundation for one of the biggest clubs in the next decade? If Arsenal can pull that off, more power to them. But I’m nit sure if you saw Ramsey’s performance today? I know he’s back from injury but he was exceedingly below average today.

You know I don’t support Spurs or Arsenal. I support Swansea. Just because Spurs are having a better season than Arsenal this year is no reason to assume that I’m supporting Spurs (which I’m not).

tottenham having a better season then arsenal? arsenal are still in for a shout of winning the premier league,lost a final of a domestic cup competition and were knocked out of europe by the best team in the world probably the best team in history to be fair with contribution from a bit of a dogy referreing decision. tottenham are 4th or 5th i think and scraped a win at ac milan a team of oaps that would struggle to qualify for europe in the premier league no comparison sorry

I think you are being too hard on Aaron Ramsey. He clearly isn’t 100% match fit and was dragging by about 70th minute, not even running. His problems seemed to be more fitness than skill. I think calling him “overrated” is a bit much. I don’t think Speed would name him Captain if he were. I realize he’s a Cardiff boy etc but come on, the cat broke his leg 1 year and 1 month ago. His recovery has been short of amazing thus far.

Honestly had his time at Nottingham not been plagued with so many snow outs he’d probably be further along too.

And if Hennessy can just pretend he’s goalkeeping against Arsenal every game, Wales will be okay.

I think you just had too high of expectations especially considering they were all but mathematically eliminated anyway.

hard pressed to say that Spuds are having a better season, Spurs fans think that the way back to the Champions league is beating Barca Real and then winning the final… V. they could just beat teams in the PL drop zone…

anyway… I feel ya today, I support West Ham. You are going through what I call Saturday.

Taking a step back, Spurs have exceeded expectations by beating Inter Milan and AC Milan in the Champions League and making it into the quarter-finals. They’re also battling for fourth place. Arsenal has not met their expectations. The expectation was that they would finally win silverware this season. It’s not looking likely that this will happen.

Agreed w/ Gaffer; US would put at least 2 past Wales (at Wales); in light of Wales’ upcoming games:
at England, at Bulgaria, home v. Switzerland and Montenegro, Wales getting a single point at the end of group play would be considered a success…some of these guys were scared to be on the field today. Very disappointing; I expected w/ a new coach and v. an old enemy, Wales would go all out for 90 minutes…too bad…

Nice to see Scott Parker doing a very good job in the defensive midfield role which has been missing for too long! We lost Hargreaves which was gutting, but why did it take so long to discover Parker?
More of Parker and Wilshire in midfield, and less of the non-functioning
Gerrard / Lampard method is a good change.
Interesting how Young picked up his game with class players around him….A good move for Sir Alex I think in the summer.

I completely agree. Parker was a breath of fresh air. On paper, Lampard/Gerrard should be fantastic. But in practice it doesn’t work so well. I hope Parker gets a good run in the England shirt. In fact I thought he was better than Wilshire today – I think Parker’s experience shows when he is on the ball. He isn’t in a hurry, gets his head up, makes intelligent use of the ball and can tackle and defend effectively without fouling.

I feel like I (and a million others) have been saying for years that Scott Parker (or at least some one who naturally fits the DM role) HAS to be part of the england XI. I’d rather have an average DM playing at DM than have no-one playing there just to accommodate more “stars” elsewhere.

I never saw the game, but from what i heard it sounds like he did a decent job, and freed up Lampard, Cole, Johnson and Wilshere to play their natural games.

Unfortunately, I feel as soon as Stevie G is fit, Capello will try to shoe-horn him into the team at Parker’s expense.

A depressingly atrocious display from Wales. They played as if it was a friendly. No one stood up and tried to take the game on. Joe Ledley was awful. Ramsey was hardly inspirational. Bellamy tried but came up short.

In the entire 90 minutes, Joe Hart touched the ball three times (by my count). Once to catch a cross from a corner. Another time to pick up a back pass that wasn’t deliberate. And the other time to punch a cross (from another corner) out of the box.

Man of the match, for me, was Scott Parker. As soon as Wales got the ball and tried to play it up field, they were consistently pressured. They lacked creativity to unlock the England midfield.

I’m absolutely embarrassed by how poor Wales were today. The players failed to muster up any desire to win this game. They may have been outmastered but they also failed in lacking the passion necessary to at least give Welsh supporters some pride.

The Gaffer March 26, 2011 at 3:00 pm
A depressingly atrocious display from Wales. They played as if it was a friendly. No one stood up and tried to take the game on. Ledley King was awful. Ramsey was hardly inspirational. Bellamy tried but came up short.

Jermaine Jones (Blackburn Rovers), Stuart Holden (Bolton Wanderers; however he had to pull out due to injury sustained against Manchester United), Jonathan Spector (West Ham United) and Marcus Hahnemann (Wolves). US bench has more Premier League footballers on their squad than the entire Wales team does.

And then of course there’s Tim Howard (Everton). Clint Dempsey (Fulham) wasn’t called up for this squad.

Stuart Holden, Jermain Jones? Are you sure, Last I was hearing on another forum was all the U.S fans going crazy that J Evans had injured their best player. Unless Bob’s started putting these so-called best players on the bench to start games. I’ll have to check out this U.S friendly tonight to see how many of these subs are subs,

The US would beat Wales easily. The US is ranked at least 20 places above Wales. There is a reason for that. Wales is in a rebuilding phase and in time they will be better but right now they aren’t very good. They are last in their group for Euro 2012 for a reason. They deserve being last in their group at the moment.

Sorry but being bottom of that group behind Montenegro and Bulgaria does mean you are rubbish! You put the US in that group and they would finish 2nd behind England (if not battling it our for 1st) or worse finish behind Switzerland if they have a very bad qualifying campaign but there’s no way the US would finish last in a group like that! No way!

The Montenegro team that you have just dismissed has beaten Switzerland, Bulgaria, Wales and has got as draw against us at Wembley. I wouldn’t be too confident about showing up and wiping the floor with them. The U.S would be lucky to get 3rd in this group and would be more likely fighting it out to avoid being bottom. Sorry but that is the truth

I never said the US would wipe the floor with any of the teams in the group. However the expectation of the team would be to come out 2nd at least, while the expectation of your Wales team is to finish bottom and be proud of such achievement because of the caliber of the group.

As for your opinion being the truth, I’m sorry but your comment about the Wales bench and complete way you seemed perplexed when told about the US bench shows me that you know little about the US squad. So you would be the last person to assess how well they would do in the Euro qualifying group since you do not watch the team play obviously.

Let me add that I’ve seen Wales play many times over the past few years thanks to GolTV, ESPN3.com and other services, but this was their worst display I’ve seen in as long as I can remember. Based on their performance today, Swansea City could give them a hiding (Swansea has a few Welsh players). But still, a Championship side could have swept past Wales today, as woeful as they were.

I agree first half they were poor, I thought they had a few spells in the second half where they passed it around a bit. You might argue England had taken their foot of the gas by then but i don’t think it was all bad, especially when they have Bale to come back.
I think they are a better team than their zero points say but we will have to wait and see if Speed can do something with them.

FIFA rankings are often a sham but the US is currently 19 whilst Wales is 116. And whilst Wales has individual players who may be better the US plays extremely well, together, as a team. Also, anyone who just watched the draw vs. Argentina should realize this current US squad is no push over.

I did watch the U.S and to be honest it was men vs boys in the first half, they ran rings round you, I’m not even sure if the U.S got out of their half. You came into it more 2nd half but to be fair it could have been 10-1 to Argentina.

Arsenal choked away a domestic cup to a relegation threatened side, got bounced by a Barca side that outclassed them regardless of scoreline, (Anyone who watched the Nou Camp game knows Arsenal was dominated and was lucky to be in with a chance when Van Persie got tossed), lost a cup quarter to their main title rival and have failed to capitalize on a series of United flops while playing mostly crap opposition. And that was just their last week in February and March.
Do you know how you avoid Barca in the round of 16? Win your group. Who was in the Arsenal group again Shaktar, Braga and Partizan real champs there.
Meanwhile Spurs split with the defending ECL champs and beat a Milan team that is winning the Serie A right now.

The most entertaining game was between Argentina and the USA primarily because it was the most competitive of the ones I watched. Argentina was clearly on top in the first half and probably should have scored more than one. But the US came back strongly in the second half and made a real game out of it. The US team seems to be on an upward trajectory. Sadly the same cannot be said for Wales and Scotland who both seem to be losing ground rapidly in the international arena. Scotland did better against Brazil in the 2nd half, and it was Brazil after all. But even so – I have memories of Ally’s army proudly marching off to Argentina in ’78 when us English fans had to think of something else to do for the summer. I also recall the Welsh being the feistiest of the Home Championship teams. What happened? England seem to be holding their own in the rising tide of International competition, but Wales and Scotland need to get some water wings and fast. Still, neither were as bad as Kazakhstan who were steam-rollered by a Tuetonic display of efficiency such that the second half was a complete waste of time.